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Parkinson’s: An Athlete’s Journey is for athletes navigating Parkinson’s, the coaches and clinicians who train them, and anyone who wants real-world strategies for performance and longevity. Hosted by Eric Von Frohlich and Todd Vogt, the show focuses on tactical takeaways: how to train, recover, manage symptoms, and stay consistent when the rules keep changing. Expect honest conversations, tested routines, and guest experts who go deeper on what works.
Eric Von Frohlich (00:32)
actually the one responsible in large part for making this podcast happen. Not literally this episode. I mean, the whole concept.
TODD VOGT (00:39)
is Ellen Minzner, the High Performance Director for US Paralympic Rowing team. Ellen was High Performance Director for all five years when I was on the US Paralympic Rowing team.
And she's gonna tell us about her experience as a rower, as a coach.
Ellen Minzner (00:52)
I am super thrilled to be here. Todd's one of my favorite people in the world and Eric and Deb, like I've known them for a few variations of what they've been doing in the rowing world. But for actually like head coach of all the Paralympic disciplines for US rowing right now.
Eric Von Frohlich (00:57)
Okay.
Thank
Ellen Minzner (01:12)
and also head coach of the Boston Training Center. So that means any of the athletes that are making Boston their home, I'm kind of the point person that they report to for coaching, even though some of like the senior men and women might head off to other Olympic camps as they go, but that is the home base of Boston. And that's probably more of what I started. I didn't really start the Paralympic team. Paralympic rowing has been around since 2008. We've had some amazing people competing in para events before me, but...
Eric Von Frohlich (01:19)
you
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (01:39)
think one of things that I did do when I got involved in the 2013 was to say, we need a base of people, a centralized place of coaches and support, and a bit of a team feel people weren't really showing up at competitions and there weren't really all that many. so that's kind of what I started there.
I'll back up just a little bit. I wrote
in college at Villanova University and actually was fortunate enough to go to Boston after my college training and fell in with a group of people who at that point were training at something called the Boston Rowing Center, which was really just the good graces of then Harry Parker, the head coach at Harvard and Liz O'Leary, the women's coach at ⁓
Eric Von Frohlich (02:22)
and I'm going to and close the slides. So, I'm close the slides for
Ellen Minzner (02:27)
because they had their experience with the national team they wanted to share with others. So they gave
Eric Von Frohlich (02:27)
So, I'm close the and we'll be in a minute. So, I'm going the slides.
Ellen Minzner (02:32)
us a home within those college programs. So for athletes trying to make the national team. So
was fortunate enough to make a team. I made my first national team in 1991 and was on the team as a lightweight right through 1996.
that was really exciting for me. I got to see the world in a way that, you know, few people do, right? You see the world through the lens of
traveling as an elite athlete and for me coming from a town like Lawrence, Massachusetts,
Eric Von Frohlich (02:58)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (03:01)
which is one of these Milltown very blue-collar town in Massachusetts You know, we didn't take a lot of family vacations I had a wonderful vacation spot like nearby but in terms of the international travel that was not anything I was exposed to nor nor many of my people that I grew up with so it was an incredible
opportunity and I always felt like I want to give back to the sport because if a person like me from Lawrence Massachusetts can pick up this sport and see the world in it in a different way you know I gotta I gotta find some way to open that door for others right because it really it shaped who I am not the rowing in the competing sure that shaped me but like
how I saw myself interacting
Eric Von Frohlich (03:43)
Thank you.
Ellen Minzner (03:45)
with the world was super powerful.
TODD VOGT (03:47)
you started with rowing?
Ellen Minzner (03:48)
Good question. I didn't know much about recruiting and I loved basketball and I loved running and I did both of those at a very small Catholic school in Lawrence and ⁓ went to Villanova and just thought I could go play those sports. And, ⁓ you know, I'm going to Villanova and like the basketball team is phenomenal. I mean, they won the NCAA championships my freshman year on the men's side and the women were pretty good too. And the track athletes were like,
Vicki Hoover, Sonja O'Sullivan, like these great names in track and field. The coaches were like, what are you doing here? We don't have a spot for you. And my sister had rode at Tufts and she said, if you want to do something, just try crew. You'll really like it. You'll really like it. So I walked on to rowing at Villanova, which was a club sport then. And I really loved every second of it. I had amazing
Eric Von Frohlich (04:25)
Ha
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (04:44)
But when I was done with college, said, I'm not ever going to row again. So ⁓ I thought I was done in college, moved in with my sister who was in Cambridge at the time and community rowing was just getting started. They weren't even in that skating rink. They were in a small shed built by Sherry Proctor. And it was still just forming those members of the 1980 Olympic team who were in their way trying to give back to the sport had just
Eric Von Frohlich (05:05)
you
Ellen Minzner (05:12)
got this group of people together. And as it turns out, the first crop of coaches there were all Olympic men and women trying to make a little money on the side while they were to pursue their Olympic dreams. So that was my first job out of college was picking up some money part-time and coaching at community rowing in that very early stage.
And suddenly I realized everybody around me is like, I'm training for this, or I was in the men's quad last year. And I said, this seems like pretty cool. I'm going to try out for this group. And it took me two years. I tried two years in a row to just stay with the Boston Training Center. I was cut two years in a row. And I thought, this is really hard. But I stuck with it. And I did end up making the national team.
I won the world championships 1995 and 1996 in the women's lightweight pair. That was super exciting bronze medal on my first team. I really got a taste for that fascination with what's difficult, right? Like it was so hard that I wanted to get good at it, that's what I liked about it. I liked what was hard.
Eric Von Frohlich (06:05)
Thank
It's amazing that the origin story you have is so similar for rowers. They were good athletes who never rowed and they go on to be world-class rowers or world champions. It seems like there's something to getting a little rejection at a certain point in your life that inspires some greatness.
Ellen Minzner (06:37)
Yeah, yeah.
I think that rowing rewards hard work. I ⁓ could practice my free throw or my three point shot till the cows came home and I probably might only get somewhat better.
what kept me going through all those initial setbacks was the fact that I knew I was improving. I knew that every year my ERG was dropping by like 10 seconds. So I knew there was still potential. So I was getting better even though
Eric Von Frohlich (07:10)
Wow.
Ellen Minzner (07:14)
I still, wasn't making teams right away. think really important for like lesson for me as a coach, because the athlete have to know they're improving. If you're not motivated by your own improvement, not much else will really matter. So I always try and convey that in my coaching to make sure that athlete can see some improvement even where
They may not be meeting all of the external goals performance wise or production of medals and things like that.
I started that coaching gig as I started training and I kept that mode for a while, it's kind of a grind actually to the coach and then row. So I was coaching at various places in Boston, the Windsor School, Wellesley College while I was training.
even did a little bit of collegiate coaching when I was done. Collegiate coaching, it was exciting, Kansas State and then Cal Berkeley. But college coaching was not going to be for me. I was getting pulled back home. My was not doing well health-wise. I kind of felt like I needed to be more local.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:14)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (08:21)
moved back to Massachusetts. so I did that, came back again to community rowing more as a coach this time.
Right from the get-go was working with athletes with disabilities, just cause it was like, okay, you got the masters from seven to nine and you got to adapt a program from 11 to 12. It just was what you did. that was very cool, but I had no instruction in it. No, no guidance. And, um, I'm grateful.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:36)
Yeah. ⁓
Ellen Minzner (08:47)
for what we were able to do
89, 90, right around there. And then later on, I took on a bigger role of community rowing, which I was in charge of the outreach programs, which at that point was sort of the public school program for high school veterans rowing, and people with disabilities. And
TODD VOGT (08:50)
What year was
Okay. Yeah.
Ellen Minzner (09:11)
national team coach for the 2012 games was retiring after 2012. So I didn't start the Paralympic team. We had a fairly successful team. had, I think, silver medal. We've had a smattering of medals in the other categories prior to 2012. I don't have that list right in front of me, but we had some very strong athletes. Angela Madsen was doing great things. Of course, Rob and Oksana.
Eric Von Frohlich (09:13)
Thank
you
Ellen Minzner (09:36)
So we've had some good teams, but that coach was retiring and they called us at Community Rowing to say, hey, you or one of the other coaches want to take that on? Because that adaptive program that I had worked with, we started to show up at races. In fact, with so few races, I started bringing them to speed orders. Why not? It's a race, right? Let's go. so that sort of competitive presence. ⁓
Eric Von Frohlich (09:57)
Right.
Ellen Minzner (10:01)
US rowing kind of reached out to myself and Bruce Smith at the time to take on the
go ahead.
Eric Von Frohlich (10:08)
Did you find
that there was a difference between working with power rowers versus regular rowers?
Ellen Minzner (10:14)
I didn't really, I felt like one of the things I thought was really important is that everybody should compete. And, not to say you to like push people and be all about results, but I felt like being able to compete, does a lot of things for a person and whether that competition is like a local, you know, meet up and just do a local regatta or, or bigger scene.
Just to get out there and compete is super in your growth, it, it has everything about like that challenge that you're looking for. It puts you in a bit more vulnerable position. Like I have to like now take the things I've learned and, put it all together. And I felt like it was really good for personal growth. So in that way, I didn't say it was much different. said, let's get athletes competing. Let's find events. Let's get people out there
that's appropriate level for where they are developmentally, but everyone needs to sort of take that little risk with enough support that they can get out there and push themselves challenge themselves. And I really liked that aspect of it. So, and that's what I think I tried to bring to the PARA program because in some experiences I would feel like too many other people would think it's good enough that they get on the water.
Isn't that great? And, I, yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (11:31)
Right, it's kind of coddling to their
athleticism and to their motivation and drive.
Ellen Minzner (11:38)
Yeah, and it's great for some people, but I also feel like after a while, you can't do just that as rowers. We want to improve, we want to expand, we want to grow our horizon. And I thought that that was a really important thing that maybe was getting a bit overlooked. And even early on, as I tried to do this job, I made the same mistake, you know, we had this growing program is exciting. I thought, isn't this fantastic? We've got 12 people showing up to an adaptive rowing session. Isn't that great?
But like, actually it wasn't great. 12 people in an adaptive session with a couple of coaches and volunteers. You know how much set up time and breakdown time. And by the time you do those things, that's like not very much water time.
So I realized, okay, this really is great, but now we need to improve it. And so we started segmenting out programs based on goals and things like that and trying to move that forward.
So I your original question was, do I treat that differently? No, I want people to compete. I want people to be at their level and then push to the brink of that level. So in that way, it's the same. And when I work with athletes, such a spectrum when you work with athletes with disabilities. It's not like, it's not even a category, right?
There are people who are born with a disability and they acquire it and some is a physical and some is a visual. And even so, presenting, you have conditions like a Parkinson's, which is not stable, meaning it could be kind of stable, it could can't even really use the word pararowing and say, could you treat them differently? And maybe
to my fault sometimes I have very little understanding or knowledge about what the condition is of the athlete in front of me. I mean, I know generally, but what I'm trying to figure out when I coach an athlete is like, first of all, there's the things that are absolutely required for the sport. You gotta be able to row the distance without stopping. You've gotta be able to like produce a certain number of watts on that
or lock in order to be reasonably successful, you've got to be durable enough to handle the training to prepare you. Right? So there's some certain non-negotiables that have to be there. And then when you look at an athlete and say, okay, the athlete is not able to do X, Y, or Z things. Is that because they're not trained to do it yet? Is it actually physically impossible and we need to find a workaround for that?
Eric Von Frohlich (13:49)
.
you
Ellen Minzner (14:11)
Or
is it something that we can make a modification or an adaptation to have them do it in a different way? And I think that's the main thing is because no matter what the background is of how a person comes to an elite level rowing program or any Paralympic type sport is you have to look at
Eric Von Frohlich (14:23)
Thanks.
Ellen Minzner (14:36)
what the demands of the sport are and how to help an athlete meet those demands where you think they probably have the physical capacity and the mental wherewithal to really compete at a high level and then figure out how to make that work. And that's a really time consuming process where the athlete themselves have to lead most of that. I know really very little about Parkinson's or MS or spinal cord injury, but I've worked with
Eric Von Frohlich (14:38)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (15:05)
athletes with all of those conditions or the impairments that they present. And I try to figure things out with the athletes. So I think that that's a really big part of it. But that process alone takes so much time that I wouldn't even have time to know every detail of a person's condition or impairment
Eric Von Frohlich (15:11)
Thank you.
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (15:26)
but they just want to be treated like an athlete at the end of the day, right? And I think that's important, you know?
TODD VOGT (15:30)
Yeah, 100%.
Eric Von Frohlich (15:33)
Yeah, I think it's a blessing that you didn't go down that rabbit hole because it would just confuse what you were getting at, which was a competitive environment.
Ellen Minzner (15:41)
Yeah. And even like, people are like, you should be a classifier. Like, I don't want to be a classifier. know, Todd was like, Hey, Ellen, think I'm, I think I'm eligible for the double. ⁓ I'll just go into that a little bit. Maybe Todd can share his story there. so
Todd is eligible for that sort of first level of impairment for rowing the four.
is actually the highest level impairment. So that first order is typically a spinal cord injury where the athlete's rowing upper body only. has a slightly more functional ability in the rowing stroke, but still the lower limbs aren't really used in the rowing stroke there. So that's PR2, which sometimes the equivalent of what one might say.
rowboat rowing or fixed seat rowing. You do a full rowing stroke, but you're on a fixed seat and not a sliding seat. And then PR3 is that sort of like first level or kind of entry level of impairment where the impairment may not impede the athlete's sort of day-to-day life in terms of major mobility impairment, but it could encompass a visual impairment.
physical impairment and as I said earlier, that physical impairment can be caused by, you know, congenital condition, an acquired condition or a progressive condition like Parkinson's. So there's a whole lot wrapped up into that very first eligibility for Paralympic rowing, which is PR3. And so those are the athlete categories. Then the...
The competition categories are the four, which encompasses that PR3 group. Then there's a a two-person boat, which requires you have a slightly more impairment than the athletes that are in the four. So the four have the greatest mobility given disability. The double slightly more impairment. Then you get into the PR2 and the PR1.
both classes, singles and doubles. But when we talk about Todd and the events that he was in, it's primarily that tier three category, the four and the double. So Todd had competed in sweep events, four and the pair actually. And he said to me, I think I'm eligible for the double. Like my condition is such that, you know, it could have medically progressed to the level that I might be eligible for the four and the double.
so I was like, okay, if you say so, we have to figure that out. You got to go through all that process and everything. But, I didn't know those details and Todd really drove that case for himself. And it was, it was really pretty cool because, I think the double and the four, like, were pretty competitive with one another and having an athlete like Todd be able to sort of migrate between those two events
and be so versatile because he had such a great rowing background. I mean, we've talked a lot about my background. Let's talk about Todd's background. And maybe you've already covered that in some other of your podcast episodes, but
that. We'll throw him a little glaze, a high level athlete, but then also a coach, right? So he's got the mind for this. He coached a collegiate level.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:33)
can throw him a little glaze.
Ellen Minzner (18:43)
He was a little bit older than some of the athletes who were sometimes coming just out of college. But to have that level of experience and background, it was such a cool component to the team environment. And I know we're talking about Parkinson's and Todd, but like, let's think about that in that context of like, kind of like leadership that he was able to bring to the program. I thought that was like actually really cool.
TODD VOGT (19:07)
Yeah, some interesting things relative to what you're saying. I met Rob Jones they were silver medalists in 2012, right? I met him at a conference in 2012, but the point of this is that was six years before I got diagnosed. When I got diagnosed, I remember the reason, having met Rob, it,
Ellen Minzner (19:13)
bronze.
TODD VOGT (19:24)
gave me the memory, I guess you would say, the knowledge that there is this thing called para rowing After I first got diagnosed, thought I was done competing and done coaching really too. I just couldn't see how I could physically do it. But then I had, because I was in the rowing world and coaching so much and had met Rob, I was like, there is rowing at the Paralympics. What does it take to get into the sport? Having met Rob gave me a little bit of the knowledge to even think that could be possible.
Ellen Minzner (19:50)
Yeah, and he's an incredible spokesperson as well. I think that, rowing is pretty obscure sport, right? It's not like we all just, you know, take an afternoon and go watch a rowing race unless we have a friend, a family member or whatever participating. So rowing is still not super mainstream. And then you think about para rowing probably every single one of the athletes that I've worked with.
Eric Von Frohlich (20:07)
you
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (20:14)
they came to it because of a story like that, like Zach Burns, was in the four in 2016, he was like, oh, I saw Dorian Weber in a magazine article. And I was like, that's what I have. I have a club foot. I'm going to go do that. Right. So it really takes so much of this kind of
personal story because I think a lot of athletes with disabilities, they don't know. And then they also don't know other athletes who've been successful.
Eric Von Frohlich (20:39)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (20:43)
having a condition that they have. And I think that that's a really big piece of it.
So maybe even what you're doing here with this podcast is gonna help somebody else, you know, find it and understand every case is so different. Some cases can make it to Paralympic level, some not, but it's still just connecting with people who've done it before you is super important in any...
any field quite frankly, but think in particular Paralympic sport and para rowing.
TODD VOGT (21:13)
One of the key things along the way was sending you that first email. I remember being real nervous about it, you know, because I sort of felt like this is gonna start this whole process here once I take this leap, thing I did before that, luckily, is I looked on, thank you to Concept2 for having a huge database of scores out there.
When I started thinking about this whole thing, I remember looking at, I was like, what are the 2000 meter times, the 2K times on the erg for Paralympic rowers around the world? And I found the British team, the Italians, the French, some of American guys, I remember seeing the scores were anywhere from like 615 to 640. And I remember thinking at like a year or two before that, I remember pulling something sub 630. So was like, whoa, these guys, some of them are super fast. I was like, I wouldn't be the fastest but I wouldn't be the slowest either, so.
Ellen Minzner (21:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
TODD VOGT (21:56)
It gave me like
a glimmer of hope, you know?
Ellen Minzner (21:59)
I think that's awesome. And Concept2 like, you know, they're doing amazing things with promoting the sport in general. But yeah, just this knowledge of like, you you kind of hit the nail on the head. How do we feel confident to know we can
go and do something. Well, you just have to always remind yourself, like, there's always going to be somebody way better than you and way worse than you. So just begin, you know? I was maybe over eager when you emailed me, because the Paralympic team in general is 11 athletes. That's just the Paralympic squad itself. And then our pipeline across all categories is probably about
Eric Von Frohlich (22:34)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (22:34)
35 athletes deep that we're just connecting with at various levels and that's taken quite a long time to build it even to that level. So you think about like of all the people engaged with sport and para sport like the rowing pipeline, we still need to grow it. So our problem is like, hey Todd, come on down, you know? It's and I don't really want to do that. In your case,
it worked out because you had all of the whole package coming into it, right?
As in my experience over the years, I also don't like to skip steps. really, it's not always all that healthy to discover somebody from that initial email and you were at a camp I think that year. You were invited to selection camp that year.
TODD VOGT (23:17)
Yeah, that following summer.
Having said that, the first time that camp in 2019, that was the first national team camp I'd been to. Even had been pretty experienced. I'd been through selection processes, but I remember we went to the first camp in Boston in 2019 that summer and I didn't know what to expect. I'd never been to a national team camp. So we rode for maybe two, three days and then suddenly we're doing sea racing. I'm like, whoa, this is happening fast.
Eric Von Frohlich (23:42)
How old were you at the time, Todd?
TODD VOGT (23:44)
I was 40, so that was 2019, so I was 45.
Eric Von Frohlich (23:49)
and how many national team members were 40 years old.
TODD VOGT (23:53)
Not many, but two people come to mind my teammate from that summer Andy is same age as me too, which is really unusual He was yeah, he's got his own background to being a hockey player single leg amputee like good athlete The other guy is Russell Gurnett who rode in the PR2 category so the fixie rowing, but he's like Russell
He was like a two or three time Olympian, But he was like 10 years older than me probably.
Ellen Minzner (24:12)
twice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's incredible.
Eric Von Frohlich (24:16)
But I'm sure there's no one
on the national team that was not with the regular rowing squad that's anywhere near 40. It's probably 30, you can't doubt that, right?
TODD VOGT (24:26)
yeah.
Ellen Minzner (24:28)
No, this is...
TODD VOGT (24:28)
There's maybe one or two especially in Paris. I was like twice as old as everybody
Ellen Minzner (24:33)
Maybe on the U S squad we happened to have a pretty young squad that year, but internationally, like the para sport in general, because people find sport is not through traditional pathways generally. Like people find para sport later in life after acquiring a disability or what have you, but you will see, I don't have a statistic on that, but I would say that the average age of
TODD VOGT (24:40)
yeah, that's true, that's true.
Ellen Minzner (24:57)
even Paralympic rowing, especially when you get into the fixed seat categories, is probably higher than the Olympic rowing team for sure. And if you go across sports, it becomes even more apparent. Like you can be fairly successful as an older athlete in the Paralympic disciplines. I don't know the exact reason for that, but I would suspect it has something to do with people finding the sport through different channels and maybe even later.
but also if athlete pipeline, you can rise to the top of certain sports and really make a name for yourself. It happens a lot more on the Paralympic side than the Olympic side, I'd say in general.
TODD VOGT (25:35)
There are three like important occurrences that happened during like my sort of journey which were directly relevant to you know that first summer in 19 when I when we end up in the pair Andy and I like we went to the world championships which is awesome I was like my mind was blown when going to the boatyard like seeing like
Olaf Truffte and things like these guys that I idolized. Like I'm in the boat yard, I'm like, what am I doing here? How am I in the same boat yard as these guys? But I remember after we raced, we finished in sixth. There's only sixth, we finished in dead I remember I came up to tell you, I was like, I was pretty bummed, but I remember saying something like, I'm coming back next year, you know? And you were like, all right, show me what you got, you know? So, talk is cheap or something like that. So I was like, okay, I'm doing this.
Eric Von Frohlich (26:11)
Sounds like Ellen.
TODD VOGT (26:14)
Yeah. Also, see, I mean, similarly in 2022 same thing. It was even a little more dramatic in 2022 because in 2022 I was in the pair the double, excuse me, this girl named Pearl, the visually impaired athlete. And yeah, we finished in fifth in the world championships and fifth out of six, but.
It was like a disappointment. We had raced early in Gavirate at this race earlier in the summer in May. We won all the races in Gavirate and had reasonably decent times. So think we had high expectations going into the world championship. So I remember talking to you after that race and I was so how much work I put in that year and how far I could have so little to show for it. So that really motivated me that following year and that following fall in winter.
PR'd on my 6K, almost PR'd on my 2K, like, I didn't miss a single workout that whole winter, like, and then I showed up for camp, like, ready to go, you know?
In 23.
Ellen Minzner (27:07)
Yeah, no, was
like super exciting. I I think like with rowing, the thing you can always do is you can go home and build a bigger or more efficient engine.
You know, you can do those things. like from my own experience, like when I wasn't getting the results I wanted, was like, I kept, you know, even people be like, oh, you should quit, you're done. know, you had bronze medal your first year and now you had like spare and stuff like that.
TODD VOGT (27:18)
Yeah.
Ellen Minzner (27:31)
I didn't have like a linear progression onto the national team, but in the back of my head I'm like, yeah, but my erg is getting better. Like I can, you know, I took the times where I was not invited to camps and I was like, okay, give me the, I'm gonna do last year's training program. I'm gonna do the whole program and I'm gonna compress it into two months. Like I was like, you know, try to do those things because that is the nice thing about rowing is you have the power to build your engine.
And you might not be able to build all your team boat skills while you're the only person home that's not selected for a camp or whatever. You can always build that better engine. I really feel like that's what you did, Todd. You were like, you really came back as real driven, but also way fitter, way stronger.
TODD VOGT (28:18)
I think this is you said in N22 at the World Championships after our race. Go home and keep doing what you're doing basically.
Ellen Minzner (28:24)
Yeah,
Yeah it's just persistence pays off. with para rowing, people that don't know, all the team boats for power rowing are mixed, right? And you're basically rowing like with like, so PR3 race with PR3. So you've got your own training.
TODD VOGT (28:38)
Yeah, mixed gender. Mixed gender.
Ellen Minzner (28:40)
And then you've got to find, ⁓ if you're a male rower, you have to find a female rower with your exact same condition, unless you're blind, because you can't have too many blind people in one boat. That's a rule. So it really is kind of like, it's a Rubik's Cube. So threading that needle and finding a combination of people who are matched physically, mentally, technically.
as well as meeting the Paralympic eligibility requirements is kind of rare. It takes a lot of work and lot of recruiting and that's what I'm trying to do now is build a pathway for people that there's opportunities to kind of match up. I just felt like I could see that you had a lot of potential and sure enough, like 2023, roughest water in the...
Eric Von Frohlich (29:24)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (29:34)
in an Olympic final at the world championships and like most of the Olympic finals were being slated for the next morning or a different time because it was so rough and they said, well, we'll let the para events go. And it was brutal and probably like, you know, you and Gemma just really cruised through that rough water and it was awesome and earned the Olympic qualification spot that year. was fabulous.
TODD VOGT (30:00)
Sometimes I think to myself about that race, was all, I clearly that was like a career highlight. Finishing second at the world was like amazing. But I often think sometimes like the conditions in the final actually might have benefited us a little bit just because we, you know, we had big ergs both of us for sure, both Gem and I. And, cruise on the course at 36, 38 strokes a minute. We rode at like a lower cadence.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:06)
I'm excited to share with you a little about the work that we're We're working on a new project called the New Program. that's going to a very creative and creative project.
And it's going to be a very creative and creative project.
TODD VOGT (30:20)
we rode actually in the basin, we did so much of our work in the basin,
Ellen Minzner (30:23)
Yeah, very well.
TODD VOGT (30:24)
in the Charles River basin, which is the sort of, is like, the basin is down near where the Charles River empties into the, whatever the harbor or whatever the ocean, right?
Ellen Minzner (30:33)
Awesome, Artie.
TODD VOGT (30:34)
but it's also the roughest part of the Charles River where all the rowing crews train. So
we did a lot of our work that summer in the we weren't phased by the rough water on race day necessarily. We're like, all right, this is like another training day almost, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (30:42)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (30:47)
Yeah, yeah, and rowing, it's
like an outdoor sport. Everyone's going to deal with those kind of conditions and probably, there are maybe some crews that were, it was maybe more opportunistic for them. When you think about like trying to make sure though that you have a level playing field, I do feel like,
that rough water probably was no friend to many people, Possibly you could have made a big charge and go for it, but you have to play the game, right? Playing the game of racing 2K is super important.
Eric Von Frohlich (31:09)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (31:18)
And with Olympic qualification on the line, for those who don't know, you still have to qualify for the Olympics. Just because you're on a team doesn't mean you go. So countries still have to qualify for the games. For our event, automatic qualification for the top five places at the previous world championships. So the 2023 world championships, very important high stakes racing, because if you get that automatic qualification, then you can kind of...
prepare and spend that next year preparing. If you don't get that automatic qualification, especially in the US, we'd have to wait until the final qualification regatta in the Olympic year in order to know that we're qualified. So that really changes how you can approach the training. So gaining one of those slots was really important.
TODD VOGT (31:56)
concerned.
Ellen Minzner (32:05)
I can remember you come in and said like, think we could have won, but we just didn't want to screw up. The water was so rough.
And Todd, like talk about your specific condition with Parkinson's, an issue. you know, in fact, I think it was in that final, maybe the one of the, I think it was the Brazilian rower did have an issue with an oar coming out of his grip, you know, and that's super unfortunate. So a small technical error could have meant sort of disaster, right? Because if you come in,
sixth last place in the A final. That's an amazing accomplishment. It changes your the year preparation entirely. So I think you did the right thing by making sure you were solidly in qualification position. Definitely in a silver position through that last probably 600 meters, I think was pretty obvious by then.
TODD VOGT (32:57)
Yeah, for sure.
Ellen Minzner (32:58)
Very savvy racing.
TODD VOGT (33:00)
Yeah, there's a couple things I'll try to keep this brief First thing, the warm-up area where you rode from the finish line towards the start line, you warmed up like above the starting line. And that part was really protected and calm. So I remember we saw the Brazilian double there. The Brazilian double had won a medal a year before in 22. So we saw the Brazilian double practicing in the warm-up area before the final.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:02)
trying to prepare for this. So, while they're in the hospital, I to you the Ashley and parents, and how they're trying this. So, while they're in the hospital, be speaking Ashley and her parents,
TODD VOGT (33:21)
We watched them do a start, it looked amazing.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:21)
in to you about the Ashley and
TODD VOGT (33:23)
were both like, Gem and I were both like, whoa, that looked good. However, as soon as they were in the rough water, I mean, I just saw them drop back, but watching the video after the fact, like yeah, they looked like they were really struggling off the start. know, they eventually finished in sixth place.
It was hard to see the Australians who were in first place. They were like so far off. They were in lane one. So it was hard to see how really, how that we were kind of gaining on through the middle, through the race. But with 500 meters to go or so, the French were in third. I could see they were like several legs behind us. And I could see, I couldn't really see the Australians, but I knew they were probably like a length or two ahead of us. I mean, yeah, we could have done something crazy, but I think both of us were thinking to ourselves, like, let's just keep doing what we're doing and not.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:48)
Okay.
TODD VOGT (34:07)
do anything crazy that's gonna cause us to catch a major
Ellen Minzner (34:10)
guys talk in the boat, right? Did Gemma call anything or did you call anything
or you guys were just like, what was going on there.
TODD VOGT (34:17)
Yeah, I think that was it
more, we both kind of said, so like, let's not do anything stupid here, you know,
take the silver medal.
Okay, bigger point I wanna make too is that, ⁓ specifically as far as my condition, like Parkinson's, did get worse over the years, like, starting in 23 is where I was having like forearm tendonitis and things like that, what I noticed is like,
Normally
you put the oars on the water, you try to use your lats, your big strong muscles, like your legs and your lats. You want to use your arms at the very end, but it's harder for me to, whatever reason, on my left side, engage my lats. So I tend to take it in my shoulder and my forearm, as opposed to having my arms straight or whatever, It's harder for me to do that, so.
I tend to bend my left use my forearms or biceps and my shoulder a little more, which is not what you want to do, but I can't control it so much. It definitely got worse over the years. Like, 23 is when it started to get bad. 24, was like, before the Paralympics, I could just tell it was getting worse. It was getting harder and harder to manage. And I was having to manage my symptoms a lot more with medication in 24.
happy the way my body held up over the five years, but I could definitely feel like it was getting worse and worse and worse, you know? Unfortunately.
Ellen Minzner (35:29)
Yeah. And I think
Eric Von Frohlich (35:30)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (35:31)
also remember one of the things that you said about the training is that, you know, um, cause I know you still work out. I still see your training peaks. that like that window post workout for you was, was kind of like a, um, a mini relief of some of your symptoms. think, I think I remember you saying
TODD VOGT (35:40)
Nice.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (35:51)
Okay. Thank
TODD VOGT (35:53)
Yeah, think that is pretty, like, the rowing or exercise in general, but certainly rowing where you're, using all
your limbs, like, it beats the, symptoms out of me for a little while, you know? It, like, smashes my arm and my left side into, like, doing what it's supposed to do for a little while, at least, you know?
yeah, so
How was training camp? What do you do on a daily basis now too, as well?
Ellen Minzner (36:11)
yeah, yeah, sure. well, besides shoveling and I see, I was just looking at training today, looking at all the athletes, like there's a couple of athletes that love shoveling, shoveling again, shoveling. So that's basically their workout right now. But no, yeah, it is, believe me. I'm sore. there's three main training centers for rowing. One in Sarasota, Florida, one in...
Eric Von Frohlich (36:25)
It's a good workout though.
TODD VOGT (36:28)
Yeah, don't you?
Ellen Minzner (36:35)
Mercer or Princeton, New Jersey, and one here in Boston. And this is the first time we've done a extended training camp with all three training centers present. So it was really cool. So Boston group went down and there's only para-athletes. We had one who's in college join us for a short time, but yeah, yeah, sure. Sky Doll, who is just graduated Virginia last year as captain. So.
TODD VOGT (36:55)
Who was here, if you don't mind, just for my own benefit? Was Skyler?
Ellen Minzner (37:02)
an outstanding division one rower in her own right and was team but in a different boat from Todd in the 2024 Paralympic Games, won a silver medal. She's moved to Boston to train full time and hopefully make the LA team. Annabel Miller, who was on the four just this past year, they were fourth, I mean, just barely out of a medal.
in the four at the World Championships this year. She's only had rode a couple of years at Wesley. And so this is really her first year of full-time training. So she was there. Eli Margolan. Yeah, no, she's doing great. And so she's in Boston. Eli Margolan, who is actually training in Vesper, but comes up for our Boston So she rode briefly at Stanford.
TODD VOGT (37:33)
Yeah, she seems like she's a lot of upside.
Ellen Minzner (37:47)
She's got a great sculling background. She was in the four also. She was down there. And then Alex Flynn, who was on the team in Paris and had actually been on the team just after his senior in high school. So his first team was 2022 where they didn't medal fifth. 2022 was kind of a difficult year for our program. didn't hit the podium there. Alex came back and silver medal in 23 and silver again in Paris.
Eric Von Frohlich (38:09)
Thank you.
Ellen Minzner (38:13)
So he's coming out for LA, but he's finishing
up an engineering degree at Tufts University. So he comes and joins us when he can. So he was down there. And so those athletes were there among the rest of the Boston Training Center athletes who are on the more of the Olympic side, like Christie Wagner, Emily Calfells, Mia Levy, Andy LaRue. So that crowd is down in Sarasota. They're staying for a selection round, but we don't have selection right now. So our crew.
Eric Von Frohlich (38:21)
Thank you.
Ellen Minzner (38:41)
Para came back to Boston for like a round of winter training before we get back on the water in the spring. But the training camp was great. One of the things they do, a really great job is each event has what's kind of known as the competitive time standard. Like if you're fast in say the PR3 double or the men's quad or whatever, there's a certain time, a target time. And when you're at a training camp like that with multiple events and boat classes,
Eric Von Frohlich (38:55)
Okay.
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (39:09)
we can all be doing the same workout and we're all judged on our individual standard. So I think that was a lot of fun. We spent most of the time in singles and doubles and pairs among those four para athletes, but doing the same training as the Olympic men and women down there. And when it comes
to race day, which we did every Saturday was, you know, four by 2000 meters at not quite full out race pace, but kind of approaching race rating. That was really great because each event they would
publish all the results and you would get not only a percent of your time standard, but a ranking of all 24 boats there. So mainly the small boats. And that was really great. So yeah, we might not have the
Eric Von Frohlich (39:46)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (39:52)
women's single, might not be the fastest boat class out there, but Skye was ranked like 10th compared to her time among the group, right? So it just, everyone is, so you're sort of on par.
TODD VOGT (39:58)
Cool.
Ellen Minzner (40:03)
you know, think about it that way. So everyone feels like they, they can be out there. They know that they're going for their own time, but they're also trying to see how they can stack up against their Olympic counterparts. I thought it was an awesome experience for us. Really great for me to kind of learn and be around Jesse Folia and Casey Galvanek who
are amazing coaches and just kind of be in a different environment for all of us. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I really hope we do it again.
TODD VOGT (40:33)
yeah, with the time standards, you can do workouts where you know, if you know a men's single is 15 seconds faster than a PR3 double, whatever, you can stagger the starts to make it competitive as well, make them fun.
Eric Von Frohlich (40:34)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (40:39)
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, that's a little bit hard to
manage. So in Sarasota, it's really just that that 2000 meter course with a little bit of run out room. So it's much easier to start everybody together. Everybody kind of crosses the finish line. And by the time the last wave is is crossing the finish line, we were going in groups of four, let's just say. So using both sides of the race course, four lanes from start to finish, everybody regroups four lanes across, finish to start in, I don't know.
six or seven different waves. So it basically was like a giant loop of pieces. We didn't get a lot of coaching done. We were just filming and timing. But to do it that way was really, pretty cool.
TODD VOGT (41:23)
Did they have a Colorado Springs camp as well?
Ellen Minzner (41:25)
Oh yeah.
Yeah. We, we, we've been going to a sort of pre winter training, strength and conditioning camp for a couple of years. We've, we've been doing Lake Placid Olympic training center. They've been wonderful for us. And, we decided to change it up a little bit and do the same camp out at the Colorado Springs training center, the Olympic training center there. One of the reasons we went there is because they have
a high number of full-time Paralympic sports at that training center. So the Lake Placid one is mainly Olympic. They might have one or two Para bobsled, but the staff and the athletes in Colorado Spring, they have a little bit more depth of expertise specifically in Para. And the camp for us is intended to sort of set some benchmarks
for the year ahead in terms of training, physiological benchmarks strength benchmarks. So I think that was actually really eye-opening to have access to the physiologist who works with Paralympic sport, like very, very different. I'm only taking what I know as a national team athlete and what I've learned from other national team coaches. And like our training program is the same as what the Olympic pool does.
And then I sort of adjust it a little bit as I see fit. But I really got my eyes opened by really talking to Jeff Burns at the USOPC there. He's kind of the physiologist that works specifically with their in-resident Paralympic sports. And I learned a lot, specifically for how we've been working with Andrew Mangan, who's a PR1 ⁓ single scholar for us. He's kind of got a high level incomplete spinal cord injury.
Eric Von Frohlich (42:57)
you
Ellen Minzner (42:59)
I said, well, you know, this athlete's been working really hard, know, good head on his shoulders, strong growing background prior to injury. He's improving in these areas, but not in these areas. What are we doing here? What are we doing wrong here? And it was really eye-opening. So when you're in that PR1 sport class and you're really limited to that just upper body function. So they used to call that PR1 category arms and shoulder, right? So it's not even like.
fully leaning forward, it's really just the upper trunk, let's just call it. And what he said was that if we give an athlete that uses just essentially that one major muscle group, we give them the same training program where they're doing, you know, maybe 14, 16, 17, 18 hours a week of training and a lot of it is that low intensity. He said, probably that's just gonna be too much. Could the athlete do that level of work? Sure.
Are they gonna improve though? And that is the key question. And I think I'm getting more confident in changing the training plan, not just to make sure that they can do it, but so that they can actually improve. Because the goal of training isn't just to get good at training. The goal of the training is to actually improve. And what they said was that recovering glycogen, and I'm probably not gonna...
get this exactly right because I'm not a physiologist per se, but if that work, that volume of work, you're talking 60, 70, 80, 90 minutes of steady state, low intensity, no problem, the way the body is gonna respond to that expenditure, that athlete's not gonna recover in time for the next cycle. The way they recover and rebuild their reserves.
is going to be very different from someone who's sort of doing that work at that same heart rate range using the full body stroke, the full leg drive on that sliding seat, full trunk swing, all of it. And he said that most of the Paralympic sports, even on the endurance side, so you got like your
Eric Von Frohlich (44:42)
Thank you.
Ellen Minzner (44:58)
para cross-country skiers or your swimmers or your triathletes and all of that. Yeah. Yeah. He said, generally speaking, you could get really comfortable, and, don't feel bad about that this athlete's volume might look more like 10 to 12 hours a week. Now that's a lot different from the Olympic training program. And you feel like, geez, is he not doing enough work? Right? What, like, you gotta forget about, it's not the volume of work that needs to be done. It's.
TODD VOGT (45:02)
Paracyclists, things like that.
Ellen Minzner (45:25)
It's what the athlete is going to improve upon and
Eric Von Frohlich (45:26)
Thank you.
Ellen Minzner (45:30)
actually do. So
changed that program a lot. So we've taken some gambles. I hope they pay off. He's going to do a time trial in a month or so, go down to Sarasota in a month. But we've basically focused on very heavy weight training for him. Right now, during this heavy weight training phase, all of that low intensity steady state, which is
pretty much the bread and butter of any rowing program. Even a collegiate program right now is doing a lot of steady state, a lot of building that aerobic base. I've said to him, completely up to you. You've got these four heavy lifts a week and then you've got these two interval work. Any steady state you do is totally you. You want to rest? Rest. You want to do 20 minutes? Do 20. You want to do an hour? Do an hour. 100%.
your call. so far, he PR'd on his 2K. Even I said, don't taper. I just need a score by January 1. Don't taper. Untapered, PR'd by about five seconds on the 2K. ⁓ PR'd on a one minute watts test by probably not quite 10%, but a good jump on that one minute watts test.
Eric Von Frohlich (46:23)
Okay.
TODD VOGT (46:28)
Nice.
Ellen Minzner (46:37)
So we have some indicators right now that this maybe is a better approach for this I heard someone say N equals one, right? There's no power rowing. So like the sample size is one. The experiment is one. N equals one. Andrew Mangan is an experiment. If we have to figure out what makes this guy fast or how can we make him faster? What training will he respond to?
TODD VOGT (46:37)
Nice.
Eric Von Frohlich (46:46)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (47:02)
And we're still figuring that out. feel as though we on a right track here and just trusting this. And he still does steady state. Like I see him in training peaks. He will do, you know, an hour even more than that. But it's completely driven by how he feels. He wants to do it great. He doesn't want to do it. It's no problem. So his average hours right now
10 or 11 hours a week, whereas before I was like, man, we're not doing enough work, we're not gonna make it, that's why we're not improving. It's not
TODD VOGT (47:32)
That's incredible. Yeah.
Ellen Minzner (47:36)
case.
TODD VOGT (47:38)
I remember seeing like when the the buildup to Paris like in both in 23 and 24 was averaging like 20 to 25 hours a week, know, between cardio, between steady state, whatever interval work and weight training, you know, it was like the biggest weeks would be about and the lower weeks were like 20.
Ellen Minzner (47:54)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. And that's what Jeff, the guy at the USOPC said. He's like, Ellen, you're going to have to be comfortable. The both of you need to let go of the ego of doing this Olympic training program. And this is the volume. Like you got to understand it's about where the athlete can respond to the training and whether or not they respond to the training. That's where you have to live and you have to be okay
Eric Von Frohlich (48:18)
you
Ellen Minzner (48:17)
10 hours, but he said, make that 10 hours really consistent. So forget about this sort of like cycling of like, let's have this low week be four to six hours and the high week be 14 hours. He's like, no,
like, cycling down the intensity, but like just be as consistent as possible with that sort of 10 hour sweet spot. And he said, you might find some benefit there. So I thought that was really interesting.
TODD VOGT (48:41)
Yeah, as you said, ultimately it's about getting results, right? mean, it's ultimately getting faster on the erg, getting faster on the water. And so sometimes, yeah, you have to do things that are unique for your own physiology. For myself, found, what I just need to do is just as much steady state as I can cram down my throat, basically. Like, I was stronger. I remember we did strength testing and I was like, I was pretty strong always, like, relatively speaking. And I could generally, like, my one minute was pretty good, but
as fit as I was, the more steady state I could handle, better, without breaking myself, basically.
Ellen Minzner (49:08)
Yeah,
ahead.
Eric Von Frohlich (49:09)
I think
you stumbled upon something that has a lot of efficacy is that on elite level athletes, giving them the latitude to choose whether to work more. They're already motivated. They're already inspired. They're already driven. You give them the latitude to adjust and modify their training volume and their training intensity. And they have a tendency to have a better read on it than the coaches from a, you know, they know their body and they know what they need to do.
Ellen Minzner (49:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. More so than, you know, we have all kinds of metrics. We training peaks, you got your watch, got your whoop. There's any number of things that can give you that. But, but I agree. And I think that's kind of, you know, how we analyze and how we understand whether or not an athlete is responding or has responded to training. Like that's like the next thing. So it used to be what did Katie Ledecky do for training? Right? I got to copy that training and that will work.
Okay, so that's just training prescription, right? That's just, here is the workout. That's such a small piece of it. It is the implementation of that training program. And then how is the athlete responding? That's the real science. So we're starting to look at things with rowing, like, these little sort of warmup routines that how you can gauge if the athlete is ready to train or have they not fully recovered.
Eric Von Frohlich (50:09)
Yeah.
Ellen Minzner (50:31)
One of the things we did in Colorado Springs is we used force Yeah, so what they were doing with those force plates is just do a counter movement jump, is you basically start from a standing position, go into a squat and jump as high as you can.
TODD VOGT (50:35)
yeah, I saw the videos. Yeah, saw on Insta. Yeah, exactly. Continue.
Ellen Minzner (50:48)
And we had PR1 and PR2 athletes there and their version of that was a push-up. So you start in a plank position, you sort of go down and push, right? So trying to get a little air time on that So what they do with that is not so much measure and try and necessarily get better vertical leap, It's looking at things like the rate at which the athlete turns, that turns around. And so.
They did that every single day before training, three counter movement jumps on that plate. And then it tracks all kinds of metrics with that. And they said it's a pretty good predictor of injury, right? So you see this athlete, we're in this very intense 10 day training camp together. Like everyone's kind of good. And then as you see, I mean, we probably weren't there long enough to see a real trend per se,
Eric Von Frohlich (51:22)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (51:35)
but you'd use that and say, Hey, this athlete not ready to train today. That it's a, it's lower metric there. So we're going to adjust that training today for that athlete. And I think the more we get better at that, the more we're going to see some breakthrough performances. And I think with para, we really have to, we don't have a choice, right? Our pipeline is small enough. And even our team is small enough that we can't afford to lose even one person to injury. can't.
Eric Von Frohlich (51:52)
Thank
.
Thanks.
Ellen Minzner (52:01)
For a lot of sports, big tryouts, hundreds of kids going out for the U 23 and the U 19 rowing programs in the country. And then they're kind of primed and ready to go out for an Olympic squad. And our pool is so small that like one athlete retiring, one athlete injuring, you know, the program is vulnerable. to not being able to form.
Eric Von Frohlich (52:09)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (52:20)
highly competitive team boats. that's what I think is really important for us is making sure not only we can monitor this training and see how we can do a better job optimizing, not just a PR one, but kind of anyone. And then looking at, is this athlete headed toward an injury, right? So we look at that counter movement jump. We look at maybe like their perceived effort. We look at a whole number of things. say, okay, can we...
get the training done, can we back off here, can we get this athlete training in a different mode and make sure can optimize their sessions for them and are they ready to do the session? And not only that, on the flip side, are they ready to do more, right? That's something I don't do a lot of, but I feel I'm getting more more confident in knowing, you know, it's easy to see when you see an athlete every single day, hey, all right, you're definitely, you look like you haven't slept, or you know, all of these things.
Eric Von Frohlich (52:50)
Thank
Right.
Ellen Minzner (53:14)
All right, you're going to do steady state and we're going to do something. That's easy. Sort of scaling back training is easy. When, when do we know it's time to go, Hey, one more set, let's go. That's going to be very cool. And I feel like we're getting close to that because as we look at different interval style training that can be done and maybe for example, if the training session is long intervals, like say
Eric Von Frohlich (53:19)
Thank
Step on the gas.
Ellen Minzner (53:39)
four to six minute intervals in a workout session. Can everybody do a different version of that where everyone's gonna have the right dosage for them based on their profile, based on where they are that day, and then still recover at the same rate to be all over, everybody ready for the same session the next time? I think there's gonna be a lot to that. And I'm excited. I've done that with Andrew a little bit saying like, hey, you feel good? One more set of 30 on, 30 off.
And it's been great. Sometimes that's his best set. So I feel like we're just kind of scratching the surface of living in the moment with these athletes and knowing when to push, knowing when to dial things down a little bit. I think that's a super exciting part of my own learning. When an athlete can really engage in that process and
set their own course with the help of the Physiologist. I think it would be hopefully exciting and compelling that we need people to stay around for two Olympic cycles in order to get really good. So I think that's what we're starting to see. There's good investment. There's good financial support for athletes now. So your first Olympics, you learn a lot.
your second Olympics is maybe where you can really shine and you really can put everything together. that's the goal being able to keep athletes healthy and optimized for two Olympic
Eric Von Frohlich (55:01)
Do you tap into HRV at all?
Ellen Minzner (55:03)
⁓ not so much as a standard know that different apps out there, I think they're really good for an athlete to follow themselves, but we don't have a standard for that within the rowing and the coaching side of things. We do lactate testing. So we'll be looking at lactate production and those, those pretty standard thresholds there. That that's one key thing. We look at resting heart rates. So the HRV calculation.
I think is different depending on the device or app that you have. I think it's an amazing measure. But right now it's not standardized to the point that we use it among the national team coaches. I use it myself. I try and track my own. And I think it's actually a lot to do in it. I think quite frankly,
Eric Von Frohlich (55:45)
Right.
Ellen Minzner (55:51)
we think about performance and health. We probably ought to think about them a lot more together, general health and general performance. But we don't use HRV in terms of our rowing metric right now.
TODD VOGT (56:01)
I want go back and mention one thing you were saying before. It seems like with a sort of vanilla or a general training program that you can get maybe 85 % of the way you need to get 85, 90 % of your speed Once you get to a certain level as an athlete, if you want to crank out those last couple percentage points, that's when I think making subtle tweaks designed for an athlete can be really helpful. For example,
I didn't make the four for Tokyo. I missed the selection was like three seconds. I did the math on it, was like a percent and a half. If I'd gone a percent and a half faster, I would have gone to Tokyo and hopefully won a silver medal. In 23, we finished in second behind by like eight seconds, which is a huge margin actually for rowing. We even, that's like a percent and a half.
Eric Von Frohlich (56:20)
I'm not an IA, I'm a I'm a CIS. I'm a CIS. a I'm I'm a CIS. CIS. I'm CIS. I'm CIS. I'm CIS. a CIS. a a CIS. I'm CIS. I'm
Ellen Minzner (56:37)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (56:40)
CIS. a CIS.
Ellen Minzner (56:40)
Yeah.
TODD VOGT (56:41)
In a closer race,
if 1 % performance improvement could go from no medal to a medal or a silver medal to a gold medal, or making the team or not making the team,
Ellen Minzner (56:50)
That's what it is. At the top, it's always that, you know, that's the part that takes the longest to get, and that's the part that...
Eric Von Frohlich (56:56)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (56:58)
you have to stay in it long enough because there's a lot of externals in rowing, right? The stars kind of have to line up for you. You've got to get that work put in and a lot of things have to go right on race day too. So that's kind of like the beauty of it and the drama of it, right? Is how it all plays out on that race course.
TODD VOGT (57:17)
Yeah,
I think that's the fun thing about watching the Olympics and Paralympic races is that,
Eric Von Frohlich (57:22)
So.
TODD VOGT (57:22)
you you're trying, you're like four years or maybe even longer, like for some the Olympic final day is like, it's one day, everything has to come together on that one day, you
Ellen Minzner (57:30)
Yeah, yeah. And super interesting, not only that one day. if you know anything about rowing, the world championships is typically a week long. So you might have a preliminary round on say Monday, and then maybe there's a semi-final round on like a Thursday,
and then you race on a Saturday or Sunday. So that's great. That's like country club type setup, right? In Olympics, which is like the most important one, the Olympic games are structured somewhat similar, not exactly.
Eric Von Frohlich (57:47)
Thank
Thank
Ellen Minzner (58:00)
but the Paralympics, three days of racing. So when you think about like, we got to prepare, you're going to have a heat,
semi-final and a final. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or whatever it is. That's three days where you've got to strategize to go wire to wire three days in a row. It's really, really different. So the approach, you know, people like, ⁓
Eric Von Frohlich (58:09)
you
Thank
Ellen Minzner (58:21)
You know, how do you feel about LA being 1500 meters versus 2000 meters? Like, A, I don't care because the para racing is a little bit longer. So physiologically speaking, I don't think it's all that different, but that's a big difference when you say I have to do a 1500 meter piece all out three days in a row. It's a lot different from saying I'm to do it a 2000 meter piece all out three days in a row in order to make sure I get myself on the podium.
I think, you know, for me, I'm excited about that.
TODD VOGT (58:53)
I should mention one thing about that just in case anybody who's listening or watching, two kilometers is the standard distance in Rome for Olympics and Paralympics, but due to the setup in LA in the Long Beach, whatever shipping canal there, it's only 1,500 meters long. Olympics and Paralympics, it's just gonna be a 1,500 meter race as opposed to the standard which everybody trains for the two kilometers.
different. ⁓
Ellen Minzner (59:15)
And you have to qualify based on a 2000 meter race and then you're going to come and do 1500. So I think, you know, for the speed events, let's say the men's eight, like I think there's going to be a lot of tactics. see a lot of different things there. I don't know how Olympic events are about it, but certainly it'd make a bigger impact on the boats that are
already traveling at the super high speeds because that's 25 % less, you know,
Eric Von Frohlich (59:43)
Thank
Ellen Minzner (59:45)
We'll see what the other programs do. We're still looking to qualify, right? We didn't qualify a double this year. So we only had the four at the world championships this year. So we're hoping to qualify for more events. And among those events, some of them will be, we'd say like bubble crews, right? Like they're not guaranteed to be even in the A final. So those will be the ones that
gotta be prepared to go full out three days in a row of
Eric Von Frohlich (1:00:08)
a wrap up question, Ellen, because you've done so much with yourself as an athlete and you've done so much work with athletes, how do you overcome adversity or help your athletes overcome adversity? And we'll try to apply some of those lessons to Parkinson's.
Ellen Minzner (1:00:24)
First of all, to listen to athletes. know, people need to be heard. And getting through adversity, I just try and remind people of focusing on the things that you can control right here, right now. So adversity takes so many forms. And I think that,
if I thought so much about the adversity of people's life outside of rowing and even, even adversity within rowing, like it'd be hard for me to do my job. And sometimes I feel a bit guilty that I, that I put on the blinders and I try and be just the coach and not necessarily like meet a lot of other needs that the athlete might have. But I'm keenly aware that, that
we have a really short time on this
planet together, right? And for an athlete with a disability or especially one with an unstable condition, they have a really like short window to achieve what they wanna achieve. And I'm keenly aware of that. But I think what I try to do is just say, is where we are right now. How can we move forward from it? What can we do in this situation an athlete is really
Eric Von Frohlich (1:01:04)
Thank you.
Ellen Minzner (1:01:27)
unable to train anymore, which actually happened in the case of of Todd's teammates, else can we do? Because having the purpose of giving back is incredible. And I think
one of the things, this isn't exactly what you asked about, Eric, but really just about finding purpose and finding things that the athlete can control. If it's a setback athletically,
Eric Von Frohlich (1:01:42)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (1:01:51)
rowing, build a bigger engine. Look what Todd did. Went home and built a bigger engine and look what he did. That's amazing.
If it's other life setbacks or things that happen that are beyond your control, just finding meaning in those moments. And I'll say this about the Paralympic games.
Eric Von Frohlich (1:02:04)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (1:02:09)
I used to say like, hey, this is an injustice. shouldn't the Paralympics should be part of the Olympics and have all of that?
You know, everything should be one event. Why is it separate? Why is it two weeks later? Why? I really was, you know, felt like that was like a personal thing I should try and change. And then, think I felt that way a little bit after Rio, but, I think by the time I was coming into Tokyo, I was like, no way. The Paralympics is the greatest thing you'll ever see. And there's nothing else like it.
It cannot be intermingled with the Olympic movement in that same way where everybody would be in one place because you lose it. When you look out at the athlete village, and this is true even of athletes such as Todd, you wouldn't know Todd had any disability or eligible impairment for Paralympics just by watching him walk down the street. You might not know that. Even for people at that level of disability, which they still have a high, very mobile, no real major impairments,
It changes. It changes people. They all come away with this sort of sense of like the sort of social justice is just baked right in. Everyone's like, why can't the world just be like this? You go in that cafeteria, there's low trays, there's high trays, there's people eating with their elbows, like anything goes,
Eric Von Frohlich (1:03:14)
Okay.
Ellen Minzner (1:03:28)
it doesn't matter, right? The world is just built for them.
Eric Von Frohlich (1:03:28)
Yeah.
Ellen Minzner (1:03:32)
And everybody's there to perform and no one's saying, geez, what happened to you? It's sort of, hey, how was your final? that was a rough race or whatever. And mostly athletes come away feeling like in a world where we often,
and I say we, like, I think I'm part of like society, like in the, in the bad way, like we expect people to just manage their disability or we don't really talk about it.
the world there, it's okay to embrace the fact that you have a disability. You might have a club foot, okay, or you might be in a fully motorized wheelchair that some sports have. It's just when everyone is allowed to be themselves, right, in this environment where like...
Eric Von Frohlich (1:04:06)
It's normalized. ⁓
Ellen Minzner (1:04:13)
you're fully okay because we got you. We can transport you. You can eat your own food. You can choose your food. You can do anything, right? It allows you to just be fully who you are instead of being in the shadow of the Olympic team or in the shadow of a society where nobody can be bothered putting a ramp in or whatever. I think that the Paralympic games, if you look at it through the lens,
Eric Von Frohlich (1:04:22)
Yep.
Ellen Minzner (1:04:40)
of like, I'm a minority there, right? I'm a minority. I don't have a disability, even though I probably will at some point in my life. We all will have some impairment, you know, as we age. But to just watch that whole amazing sea of people, of every kind of disability. When I got back from Paris, I was actually like, man, where are all the people with disabilities? I was kind of like...
Eric Von Frohlich (1:05:06)
Hahaha
Ellen Minzner (1:05:07)
It's so rich when you what you see and you can't never recreate
never So the Paralympic Games and it's also a fraction of the ticket price So I say greatest show on earth for half the price if you're feeling boxed out of Olympic ticket sales for LA Go to a Paralympic game pick Paralympic sport. It's it's absolutely incredible And that wasn't what you asked me, but I ended up talking about that anyway,
sorry about that
Eric Von Frohlich (1:05:31)
Nobody
agree with you. think you nailed it right on the head. You have to control the things you can control and then just accept the other things that you can't. The essence of the serenity prayer.
Ellen Minzner (1:05:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Eric Von Frohlich (1:05:46)
Well, thank you so much for being on with us. You're a wealth of knowledge. You're an incredible person, and we really respect and value your friendship. And it means the world to us to have access to someone like yourself.
Ellen Minzner (1:05:54)
⁓ it's really.